Wednesday, 8 March 2017

Note: the cover/synopsis I use is for the volume 1 (which includes issues 1-6), but I read the individual issues and I think I've read all of the ones that are out now so the review is for all of them.

Riverdale High provides a quality education and quality hot lunches, but when one of those is tampered with, JUGHEAD JONES swears vengeance! Well, I mean, he doesn't "swear." This is still Archie Comics after all.

Collects JUGHEAD issues #1-6, plus bonus features.

I'm only vaguely familiar with the old Archie comic world...I never read the comics themselves, but I've grown up watching adaptations based on them.

I wasn't very familiar with Jughead's character, is what I'm getting at.

I watched the first episode of Riverdale not realising what it was about until a few familiar characters showed up and then I saw all of the controversy about the way the writers of the show* wrote the Jughead character and it made me want to read the new series of comics about him.

Basically, in the comics Jughead (from what I've seen) has always been written as asexual and aromantic (heavily implied), and the new writer of the comics has went with that and confirmed it on the page. Jughead is canonically touch averse and aroace...but if you've seen the show, you'll know that the writers decided to erase that part of his identity** by having him be romantically involved with Betty.

Erasure and/or staight-washing of LGBTQIA+ identities is wrong and harmful, and asexuality and aromanticism are right up the top of the list of identities/orientations that are rarely ever represented in the media and when they are, it's almost never good representation (which perpetuates ignorance and harm towards actual people who identify as aro/ace-spec).

...And this has been my long-winded way of explaining how I ended up reading the Jughead comics (and why, in spite of the things Riverdale may get right, the writers are still pretty awful). Now onto what I actually thought of the comics.

I pretty much loved them. I'm not a huge comic book reader (not for lack of wanting to be, its just overwhelming choosing where to start and keeping up with them once you do), but ones like this make me wish I was, I love the art style and the characters so much, especially Jughead.

Jughead is such an excellent protagonist. He's funny and he's a good friend and he is such a wonderfully positive example of aroace representation done right. He isn't struggling with who he is, he knows exactly who he is 100% cool with it and his friends know and they're accepting and cool with it too.

The comic still acknowledges little moments of ignorance from his friends and some of the misunderstandings that aro/ace people often face but it does it in a way that doesn't darken the tone of the comic, it doesn't make the story revolve around his aromanticism/asexuality and... and I just really loved that. A lot. I hate when LGBTQ+ stories make it seem like that's all that the characters are rather just part of them.

The plot of the comics weren't really my cup of tea. I think I'd have enjoyed them more when I was much younger, but while I wasn't too interested or invested in the overall story arc, the characters made it easy to enjoy in spite of that.

I'd rate them 4.5 stars out of 5. I really enjoyed reading them and they've made me want to see more good representation of ace/aro-spec people in fiction and it's made me angry about the fact they erased that part of his character on the show because the writers are too ignorant and incompetent to write his character well without using romance as a crutch.

Later.

*I mean, the Jughead kiss isn't the only crappy thing it pulled. There was the girls kissing girls for attention thing and the whole statutory rape by an authority figure nonsense too. And the Gay Best Friend trope. I've seen some people say the racial diversity is good, but I'm not the right person to judge that but if it's true, it just sucks that they're failing so spectacularly in other areas.

**Even if they make him ace-spec somewhere down the line, it'll be like they tried to present his asexuality in a way that people who aren't ace (or aroace) can accept...which makes it clear that his character is not, never was, and never will be intended to be good representation for ace/aro people. He never fell anywhere in the middle of the spectrum, he wasn't grey-a or anything, he was firmly ace and aro.